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Jurassic Park (1993)
''Jurassic Park ''was a 1993 film directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, and starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum. It has inspired a franchise that has grown to contain four sequels. Plot Three scientists, a lawyer and two children are recruited to preview a soon-to-be-opened attraction, Jurassic Park, where genetic engineering has allowed dinosaurs to be brought out of extinction. Cast Sam Neill as Alan Grant Laura Dern as Ellie Sattler Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm Richard Attenborough as John Hammond Bob Peck as Robert Muldoon Martin Ferrero as Donald Gennaro BD Wong as Henry Wu Joseph Mazzello as Tim Murphy Ariana Richards as Lex Murphy Samuel L. Jackson as Ray Arnold Wayne Knight as Dennis Nedry Production Pre-production Before it had even been published, Universal Pictures paid sci-fi author Michael Crichton $1.5 million (along with a percentage of the box office gross) for the screen rights to his novel, Jurassic Park.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/trivia?ref_=tt_ql_2 Steven Spielberg, who had just finished shooting Hook, expressed interest in adapting the novel but wanted to make Schindler's List ''next. Universal struck a deal with him to greenlight ''List ''if he made ''Jurassic Park ''first. Spielberg agreed and production began, with the director taking inspiration from the creature features of his youth such as ''Godzilla, King of the Monsters!.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_Park_(film) With preproduction beginning, Spielberg turned his mind to how the dinosaurs would be realised on screen. He decided on a mix of animatronics and go motion. However, early tests showed that the animation was not up to his standards, so Dennis Muren told him to try using a new form of visual effects, computer-generated imagery. While Spielberg focused on the visuals, the script was being written. Universal added $500,000 to Crichton's already significant payment for him to adapt his own novel into a screenplay. The first draft cut the novel's events down significantly and toned down much of the source material's brutal violence. Previous Spielberg collaborator Malia Scotch Marmo did a rewrite of Crichton's draft. Perhaps unsatisfied with the results, Spielberg asked for another writer to polish the script, so Universal brought in David Koepp. Koepp developed the characters more than the previous drafts had and tweaked some of them as per the director's wishes, including turning the character of John Hammond from an unlikable businessman to a kindly showman. Casting the script's idiosyncratic characters proved another challenge. William Hurt and Harrison Ford were both offered the role of Alan Grant, but it eventually went to Sam Neill. Jeff Goldblum was suggested for Ian Malcolm by casting director Janet Hirshenson, while Wayne Knight and Laura Dern were Spielberg's first choices for their respective characters. Spielberg also brought in child actor Joseph Mazzello for the role of Tim; Mazzello had audition for Hook but had been deemed too young. Spielberg, impressed by the young actor, promised him that they'd work together in the future. Production Principal photography began on August 24, 1992 in Hawaii (the crew considered filming in the movie's actual setting, Costa Rica, but decided against it for infrastructural reasons). The production faced a considerable problem when Hurricane Iniki hit Hawaii, destroying sets and causing rewrites to the script (including removing a death scene for one of the characters, who dies off-screen in the final picture). After completing the photography in Hawaii the production moved back to California, where they shot the film's interior (and a few exterior) scenes in Universal and Warner Bros. soundstages. Despite the delays caused by Hurricane Iniki, the crew completed photography twelve days ahead of schedule. Post-production The film was edited by Michael Kahn, whom Spielberg had been working with since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The rough cut was finished quickly, allowing Spielberg to begin photography on Schindler's List. For the rest of the post-production stage, Spielberg worked on Park ''by night after shooting ''List ''during the daytime. Release/Marketing Initial Release ''Jurassic Park ''had a large marketing campaign costing $65 million (more than the actual film's budget), including tie-ins such as video games, novelisations and toys. The film's trailers offered only glimpses of the film's revolutionary special effects, building up the mystery and anticipation leading up to the movie's release. It premiered at the Uptown Theatre in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 1993, before opening across the country on 2,404 screens, and an estimated 3,400 internationally. Re-Release(s) To market the film's Blu-Ray release, ''Jurassic Park ''received a re-release in September 2011 in UK theatres. After viewing James Cameron's 3-D conversion of ''Titanic, Spielberg was so impressed that he decided to begin work on a 3-D version of Jurassic Park, using the same company that developed the Titanic ''conversion. The remaster took nine months to complete and opened in US cinemas in April 2013. In 2018, the film was once again re-released to celebrate it's twenty-fifth anniversary. Reception ''Jurassic Park ''became the highest-grossing film of all time (a record it held until ''Titanic's release in 1997), breaking box office records across the world. It was the highest grossing film of 1993. After it's 3-D re-release it became the seventeenth film to gross over $1 billion, and the first Universal film to do so. Not adjusted for inflation, it is the twenty-eight highest-grossing film of all time. The film recieved universal praise for its special effects and entertainment value, with Peter Travers calling it "colossal entertainment" and Roger Ebert describing the dinosaurs as a "triumph of special effects artistry." Some critics criticised the film's protagonists, with Travers saying "compared with the dinos, the characters are dry bones indeed." However, Joseph McBride argued against this in his 1993 Spielberg biography, using Grant's character arc as an example of character development. It is considered a masterpiece by many, including Empire Magazine, who gave it five stars and named it "quite simply one of the greatest blockbusters of all time." The film was nominated for three Academy Awards - Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects - and won all three. In addition to these, it won one People's Choice Award, one Hugo Award, two BAFTAs and four Saturn Awards. In 2001, it was named the 35th most thrilling film of American cinema by the American Film Institute, and is featured in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Notes and References